by H. E. Bates
A little later I heard footsteps at the tobacco counter, and then voices, a man’s voice and a women’s voice, and then the women’s laughter.
The Poet eased clipping and talking and clapped his hands tragically to his head, and sighed bitterly.
‘My wife,’ he muttered. ‘There she sits and flirts while I slave and prostitute my art to this.’ He waved the scissors. ‘Oh! I tell you, I tell you, the poet’s lot is hard. Ah!’
But suddenly the note of his voice changed. It became bold with hope and the certainty of some great conviction.
‘But I shall be remembered – I know it, I know it. Now there are only two poets for which this country is famous – Dryden and Clare – but one day there will be a third, Milton Hawthorne. And then they will come to this very spot where you are sitting, and say: "Here he worked as a humble hairdresser and we never knew."’
The woman’s voice laughed behind the tobacco counter – a thin, vulgar laugh. I said something about catching a train, but the barber seemed to take no notice either of me or the laugh, and suddenly he left me and ran into the cubicle again. I could see him writing furiously.
When he appeared again he was flourishing a paper. He stood before me and read what he had written down, running his fingers excitedly through his greasy hair:
‘When I am dead and in my grave
And gone from mortal life
Pilgrims will come and look upon
The scene of this my strife.’
‘Of course, that’s not all,’ he assured me. ‘My poems are never short. I have so much to say.’
At the tobacco counter the woman’s voice laughed again and said gaily, ‘Good-bye!’
The Barber sighed tragically and finished cutting my hair.
When he had finished I rose and looked in the glass. He had hacked and chopped my hair in the vilest way, and there were straggling ends that still needed clipping and strands that still hung over my ears. I understood even better why his shop was empty.
‘Ah, it has been wonderful,’ he said to me, and as he spoke he picked up his printed verses and made an obsequious bow so that his greasy hair flopped over his face, giving him the true poetical air. ‘If you could accept these humble verses – some day – you understand -you will remember that once your hair was cut by Milton Hawthorne.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I shall remember.’
‘I bid you farewell,’ he said, in a vaguely heroic voice.
‘Farewell.’
I went out of the shop with the verses in my hand. As I passed by the tobacco counter I stopped and bought some matches.
The Barbers wife put down her novelette and gazed at my hair, then at the sheaf of verses in my hand, and lastly straight in my face. She did not speak. But as I passed out of the shop she raised her eyebrows slightly and gave me a smile, a dark, wonderful, inscrutable smile, which I shall never forget.
A Note on the Author
H. E. Bates was born in 1905 in the shoe-making town of Rushden, Northamptonshire, and educated at Kettering Grammar School. After leaving school, he worked as a reporter and as a clerk in a leather warehouse.
Many of his stories depict life in the rural Midlands, particularly his native Northamptonshire, where he spent many hours wandering the countryside.
His first novel, The Two Sisters (1926) was published by Jonathan Cape when he was just twenty. Many critically acclaimed novels and collections of short stories followed.
During WWII he was commissioned into the RAF solely to write short stories, which were published under the pseudonym “Flying Officer X”. His first financial success was Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944), followed by two novels about Burma, The Purple Plain (1947) and The Jacaranda Tree (1949) and one set in India, The Scarlet Sword (1950).
Other well-known novels include Love for Lydia (1952) and The Feast of July (1954).
His most popular creation was the Larkin family which featured in five novels beginning with The Darling Buds of May in 1958. The later television adaptation was a huge success.
Many other stories were adapted for the screen, the most renowned being The Purple Plain (1947) starring Gregory Peck, and The Triple Echo (1970) with Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed.
H. E. Bates married in 1931, had four children and lived most of his life in a converted granary near Charing in Kent. He was awarded the CBE in 1973, shortly before his death in 1974.
Discover other books by H. E. Bates published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/hebates.
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For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.
Something Short and Sweet first published in Great Britain in 1937 by Jonathan Cape Ltd
‘The Poet’ first published in Great Britain in 1932 in the Clarion
This electronic edition published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Reader
Copyright © Evensford Productions Limited 1932 and 1937
The moral right of the author is asserted.
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eISBN: 9781448214952
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